Archdiocese of San Salvador

Statistics

, it pastorally served 2,322,000 Catholics (74.0% of 3,137,000 total) on 3,295 km2 in 162 parishes and 6 missions with 354 priests (158 diocesan, 196 religious), 1 deacon, 1,471 lay religious (343 brothers, 1,128 sisters) and 107 seminarians.

History

What is currently the territory of the Republic of El Salvador previously was part of the Spanish colonial Captaincy General (governorship) of Guatemala and, ecclesiastically, of the Archdiocese of Guatemala. Until 1842, there were four church regions in El Salvador, which reported to the San Salvador region, the most important one: Santa Ana, Sonsonate, San Vicente and San Miguel.

• Pope Gregory XVI erected the Diocese of the Divine Savior (in Spanish, El Salvador means "The Savior"), separating the territory of the Republic of El Salvador from the Archdiocese of Guatemala, by Papal bull dated 28 September 1842, constituting it as a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Guatemala.
• On 22 February 1913, it was promoted as Metropolitan Archdiocese of San Salvador / Sancti Salvatoris in America (Latin), having lost territory to establish as first suffragan sees Diocese of San Miguel and Diocese of Santa Ana
• It lost territories again on 18 December 1943, to establish Diocese of San Vicente, and on 30 December 1987, to establish Diocese of Chalatenango, both as its suffragans.
• Pope John Paul II undertook papal visits to the diocese in March 1983 and February 1996.

Twentieth Century policy

Under three archbishops, Luis Chávez y González, Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez, and Arturo Rivera y Damas, the archdiocese saw over fifty years of a progressive pastoral ministry influenced by the currents of the Second Vatican Council and a Latin American church trend that later was known as Liberation Theology. Critics interpreted the Church's advocacy for the poor as fomenting a socialist revolution and targeted the clergy for assassination. Two bishops, including Archbishop Romero, were assassinated, as were twenty six priests (including Fr. Rutilio Grande), three nuns and countless catechists and Church workers.

The post-Civil War period saw a return to traditional spirituality under the watch of the conservative Archbishop Fernando Sáenz Lacalle, a former military chaplain and member of Opus Dei.

Sexual abuse cases

In November 2015, sex abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of San Salvador became public when the archdiocese's third highest ranking priest, Jesus Delgado, who was also the biographer and personal secretary of the Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero was dismissed by the archdiocese after its investigation showed that he had molested a girl, now 42 years of age, when she was between the ages of 9 and 17. In November 2019, the archdiocese acknowledged sex abuse committed by a priest identified as Leopoldo Sosa Tolentino in 1994 and issued a public apology to his victim. Tolentino was suspended from ministry and began the canonical trial process. Another El Salvador priest was laicized in 2019 after pleading guilty to sex abuse in a Vatican trial and is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in a criminal trial.

Ecclesiastical province

The ecclesiastical province of San Salvador comprises the whole country, consisting of the Metropolitan's archbishopric and the following suffragan sees:

• Diocese of Chalatenango
• Diocese of San Miguel
• Diocese of San Vicente
• Diocese of Santa Ana
• Diocese of Santiago de María
• Diocese of Sonsonate
• Diocese of Zacatecoluca

Bishops

Ordinaries

;Bishops of San Salvador

;Archbishops of San Salvador

Coadjutor Bishops

• Mariano Ortiz y Urruela (1866–1873)
• Luis Cárcamo y Rodríguez (1871–1875) (overlapped with Ortiz y Urrela)

Auxiliary Bishops

• Tomás Miguel Pineda y Saldaña (1848–1853), appointed Bishop here
• Santiago Ricardo Vilanova y Meléndez (1913–1915), appointed Bishop of Santa Ana
• José Alfonso Belloso y Sánchez (1919–1927), appointed Archbishop here
• Pedro Arnoldo Aparicio y Quintanilla, S.D.B. (1946–1948), appointed Bishop of San Vicente
• Rafael Valladares y Argumedo (1956–1961)
• Arturo Rivera y Damas (1960–1977), appointed Bishop of Santiago de María and later Archbishop of San Salvador
• José Eduardo Alvarez Ramírez, C.M. (1965–1969), appointed Bishop of San Miguel
• Saint Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (1970–1974), appointed Bishop of Santiago de María
• Marco René Revelo Contreras (1978–1981), appointed Bishop of Santa Ana
• Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez (1982–present); elevated to Cardinal in 2017

Other priests of this diocese who became bishops

• Juan Antonio Dueñas y Argumedo, appointed Bishop of San Miguel in 1913
• Francisco José Castro y Ramírez, appointed Bishop of Santiago de María in 1956
• William Ernesto Iraheta Rivera, appointed Bishop of Santiago de María in 2016

References

References

1. (November 3, 2019). "El Salvador archbishop apologizes over priest sex abuse case". Associated Press.
2. (November 26, 2015). "Senior El Salvador priest fired over alleged sex with minor". Reuters.
3. (December 19, 2016). "Vatican trial finds three El Salvadoran priests guilty of sex abuse". Reuters.
4. (March 9, 2018). "Romero – Compromised Canonization". Gloria.tv.
5. "Vatican court finds three El Salvador priests guilty of child abuse – CatholicHerald.co.uk".
6. (November 3, 2019). "Initiate canonical process and suspend priest accused of sexual abuse of minors". Catholic News Agency-ACIPrensa.
7. "Bishop José de Viteri y Ungo †".
8. "Bishop Tomás Miguel Pineda y Saldaña †".
9. "Bishop José Luis Cárcamo y Rodríguez †".
10. "Archbishop Antonio Adolfo Pérez y Aguilar †".
11. "Archbishop José Alfonso Belloso y Sánchez †".
12. "Archbishop Luis Chávez y González †".
13. "Archbishop St. Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez †".
14. "Archbishop Arturo Rivera Damas, S.D.B. †".
15. "Archbishop Fernando Sáenz Lacalle".
16. "Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas".